I'm in a cheeerful mood. yay.

but before I launch into my usual mode, I wanted to respond to your comments sterno on my last post (why can't I see any comments anywhere after I publish them? Am I blind?! likely)

I agree with you on some points, but the whole situation of my saying people don't want peace goes beyond the political arena. There's some universal problems that have been cropping up for centuries and keep cropping up. I admit, I don't know much about politics, or even everything I could or maybe should about the situations I cited. But human nature has certain roads that it likes to travel down, whether it should or not.

I don't talk politics because I feel that on the level where things really count, it isn't coming up with the answers that are actually needed.

I realize that many areas of the world where there are problems with strife are lacking in basic needs like food, shelter, safety, emotional support, etc. it's hard to have any sense of peace when people's basic needs aren't being met. there's a psychologist - Maslow I think- who I've read about in some classes as saying that the above named items are necessary for self individuation - that is, growing in a healthy, positive way and discovering who one really is so one can, in turn, become a decent functional person in the world.

Food, shelter, safety, family/friends as support are all basic human needs and form the base of the pyramid of growing as a person- from which one can expand and develop compassionate relations towards others. if these needs are lacking - then the personality - or if you want the word "soul" suffers. Now, there are those strong people who don't have some of these items and can overcome them and still become a well individuated person, but they are indeed rare.

that said, most of the areas that are having problems with being peaceable have parts of the bottom of their pyramid missing. This also goes for all those people who are terrorists, insurgents, etc. People don't wind up blowing other people up for no reason. People are never born wanting to harm others. They either learn to, or aren't taught not to. where do they learn this from? parents. society. their culture. their religion. their leaders. everyone who went before them. And it could have started with something as simple as being neglected as a child by their parents, or something as complicated as growing up in a culture that has so many problems that everyone's too busy trying to deal with the symptoms than the cause.

This is where i'm trying to go- as tangential and woobly as i may sound. The problem of peace is not as much a political one, as a universal one and the way humanity views and treats itself.

There are people who want peace, surely, but many of them likely feel powerless or too afraid to do anything about it. I'm tired of the people who talk peace, but don't walk it.

Maybe this comes from what I'm forced to read all day for my job, but really, i'm tired of the talk, and unfortunately, there's more "right talk" in politics than "right action." I realize that the countries that are so steeped in war and hatred are a bear to even deal with, but that's because no one has really bothered to get to the heart of anything and this has been going on for far too long. They have too many issues that have sprung from the initial problem, and now it's like dealing with a ship full of tribbles when you only had one to begin with. This compounds the difficulty of dealing with any side of the situation at all.

But these problems didn't spring up out of nowhere. They were caused by people somewhere down the line, who felt self righteous, or powerful, or greedy. They were caused by people who were either too ingnorant or blind to see others as humans, as equals and brothers, instead of pawns, or things or dollar signs. it was caused by people who for some reason never learned the value of human life in general. People who truly value themselves and their own lives do not cause harm or grief to others, because they recognize others as they do themselves.

The minute someone decides to draw a line in the sand and say "this is mine and that's yours" or the second when someone says "I'm a (christian, jew, pro-lifer, hippie, democrat, african american, etc.)taking a label for themselves and then labeling another being as another word is causing a division and a separation where there isn't any and does not need to be.

Humans, unlike most animals, have the capacity to be conscious of who they are and how they relate to others on many subtle levels, and time and time again, they either refuse to do this, or are never brought to the realization that they must do this in order to coexist.

until people can drop their cultural, political, social and religious dogmas that perpetuate these problems, no amount of "peace talks" will ever succeed. unless people can grow out of the mindsets that they are in and take an honest look at themselves, their behaviours, and they way they treat others, they will remain blind to their own problems which they themselves have caused. If aggression is used as a weapon against aggression, and misunderstanding and ignorance are continually allowed to go unchecked, then there will never be peace no matter how much flapping of pieholes is done. perhaps at this point, some violence is the only way to keep the wolves at bay, but it will not solve a thing. ever. because someone else in history will see that this method is "ok" to use, and may even think by looking at the events that it may have succeeded, but it will only appear that way on the surface. It's a vicious cycle.

there are some people who say they want peace, but are not willing to let go of their attachments to do so. I'm not saying that this is an easy thing to do in this world, cuz it sure as hell isn't.

Gandhi said, be the peace you want to see in the world. he was assassinated.
martin luther king. assassinated.
jesus? shall I go on?

why? because some people just don't want peace.

You don't put out a fire by throwing more fire on it.

If something is on fire, you throw water on it, not talk about it. Then you do something to prevent another fire by analyzing what caused it to begin with.

You don't preach love and peace through jesus christ, and then judge condemn someone you don't really even know based on what you've read in a book.

What I want, is for people to shut up. Just shut up, and do something positive for once. Stopping talking about how great you are and what you're going to do, just fucking do it. Go to the source of whatever the problem is and work on a way to fix things. Stop dancing around all this bureaucractic bullshit and getting tied up in treating the symptoms. If there are too many symptoms? Fine. Deal with them as best you can, but don't you dare ignore the source the source of the issue, because you will have a never ending battle if you do.

We are the source of our own messes. we can point the finger at each other, but all that finger pointing just forms a big chain, because someone always finds someone else to blame instead of looking in the mirror.

yes, there are people who want peace and are working towards it. they are brave and noble and doing what they can (and sometimes end up dying for what they believe in). There are not enough of them, obviously. And of course, a person can only do so much. But people, en masse, can have a larger effect on the world.

People are simply microcosms of our larger world. The more of them that can be reached and taught that they are valuable and their lives are worthwhile from the beginning, the more will have a more positive effect. Positive begets positive, as negative begets negative.

Maybe I've swallowed too much philosophy, and maybe i'm too much of an idealist in some ways. But I don't believe the world is looking in the right place for answers.

The concept of "shadow issues" extends beyond people, it applies to cultures as well. And too many cultures fear their own shadows right now. they are unwilling to look at them and accept them, and without doing that, no change can be made.

And what so people fear most besides the hidden parts of themselves? Change.

The death card in tarot signifies change- and change is death to a lot of people.

If there is to ever be peace, people have to be willing to REALLY change. If history is to show any example, it's that humans think change is poo, so they spin around in cycles that repeat every so often. They think they've got something nipped, and it just comes around again with a different face.

I do not believe that mankind will come to any significant peace in my lifetime, nor the lifetime of my yet to be someday conceived children. Nor even their kids.

I would love to, but i don't see it. That's why i'm not a good idealist.

And, if I were to ever get involved in politics to try to incite change with the way I'm wired, one of two things will happen. Someone will assassinate me, or no one will listen to me to begin with because I don't fit their agendas. And I wouldn't want to get involved that deep anyway, because anyone who wants to get into politics like that, shouldn't.

That's why I make harry potter wands out of junkmail. :)